Sold by Clarissa Wild

Marcello

Two days later

It’s been a miserable two days since my confrontation with Harper. The memory of it haunts me. My hand on her throat, the feeling of her flesh beneath my fingertips, and how badly I wanted to finish what I started—taste her, claim her, own every inch of her with every inch of me.

It’s brought up old memories, and I’m trying to piece the puzzle together. But I can’t just sit here and do nothing about it, so I decide to go pay an old friend a visit.

“This it, sir?” the driver asks as the car comes to a stop.

I peer through the window up at the giant church looming over the street. “Yes. Stay here. This won’t take long.”

I get out and walk up to the huge building. I don’t knock on the door before entering. There are no unwanted guests here. Especially not for the nun who runs the place.

I spot her before she sees me. She’s sitting on one of the benches, her hands folded in front of her, muttering some words to God.

I close the door behind me and lock it so we don’t get any unwanted guests. Then I stalk toward her, silent as I can be, as I don’t want her to run.

“Marcello?”

I pause in my tracks. How did she know it was me?

“I can hear your footsteps,” she adds.

A brief smile forms on my lips. “Is it that obvious, Andrea?”

“Only you would wear such expensive shoes that they’d click-clack all over the place.”

I snort-laugh. “Of course, only you would recognize them.”

“As if I didn’t memorize the sound from all those years ago.” She stops praying and turns her head to look at me. “Why are you suddenly here? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

It’s true. I have not been to this church, her home, for ages.

I used to believe it was because of my inability to believe in a God the way she does.

Or maybe it’s because I wasn’t ready to face my own past mistakes.

I approach her and sit down on the other end of the bench. “I know, Aunt, and I apologize for that. It’s just that … I’ve been busy.”

“Busy,” she repeats, but in a scathing way. “Of course you have.” She draws a cross on her chest like she’s trying to make the lord forgive me for my sins.

But there’s no way I could ever go to heaven after all the crimes I’ve committed, and I don’t even fucking care.

“What do you want?” she asks.

“Do you always assume the worst of me?”

She throws me a damning look. “Am I wrong?”

I snort again. She’s always seen right through me. Perhaps that’s why I chose her all those years ago.

“Now tell me why you’re here,” she says.

“I wanted to ask a question.”

“That’s all?” She raises her brow at me. “Spill.”

She still has that Dellucci fire in her.

“Remember all those years ago, when I brought a little girl to your doorstep?”

She frowns, clutching her nun dress, scrunching it up in her hands. “Of course, I raised her, she—”

“Is her name Harper?”

She licks her lips, taken aback like she’s confused. “How … how do you know? Did you check the bracelet she wore before you dropped her off?”

Fuck.

When I dropped the child I rescued from the fire at her doorstep, the only reference to her identity was a bracelet on her wrist with her first name… but I’d forgotten what it was.

The second Harper mentioned Molly and Frank’s names, all the little wires in my head started coiling up. And now I finally know why.

It’s her.

She’s the girl I rescued.

The girl searching for her parents who may not even be alive.

Fuck!

How could I not have seen this?

“Why are you asking me this?” Andrea asks, pulling me from my thoughts.

I take in a deep breath, my nostrils flaring. Then I get up from the seat and march off.

“Marcello!”

Her stern voice makes me stop midway down the hall, and I stare down at my own two feet and the tiles in front of me. I always hated coming here when my mother forced me to. Now I remember why.

“You tell me right now … Why?” Andrea calls.

She always had her way of making us talk.

Even Camilla, the wife to the Italian Don, would answer when she called.

There is power in these halls.

Not the power of guns or money, but the power of a woman voicing the will of God.

Clenching my teeth, I answer, “I have her.”

I can’t bear to look at her.

“What do you mean?”

I glance at her over my shoulder, saying through gritted teeth, “She’s mine, and I’m not letting her go.”

And I’ll be damned if that’s a sin.

The ride homeis over in a snap. It barely registers with me that the car has stopped. That’s how buried I am in my own thoughts about Harper … and the role she plays in this city.

Still, I get out of the car and slam the door shut behind me. I go inside and get to my study, where I pick up a bottle of whiskey and pour myself a glass so I can brood in front of the fireplace. Even though there’s no fire crackling, looking at the soot is enough of a distraction so I can gather my thoughts.

As I take a sip of my whiskey, my phone suddenly rings. I pick up, barking, “Yes?!”

“Come quick, Marcello,” Claudio pants into the phone. “We’ve been hit.”

I don’t say another word. I hang up the phone and race to the garage, where I climb into my fastest car and take off with screeching tires. He texts me the address on the way. It’s one of our warehouses near the docks, a place we hold all kinds of valuable products, both legal and illegal.

When I arrive, the whole place is burning.

A massive column of dark smoke reaches up to the sky. I’m too late to investigate it—the first responders have already arrived. Red and blue lights flash everywhere in the afternoon sun. A man in uniform unspools caution tape around the perimeter of the scene.

“Fuck,” I hiss under my breath.

As Claudio nears my car, I roll down the window. He jerks his head toward a back alleyway to the side of the warehouse. “I’m parked back here. Come, get in my car. Giovanni found a survivor, one of our men, and he’s taken him to a nearby safe house. He can tell us what he saw.”

I leave my car behind, and we drive in Claudio’s vehicle to a nondescript office building half a mile away. One of my men stands outside, smoking while he guards the entrance. He opens the door for us so we can go inside.

We find Giovanni standing next to a man lying on a couch. The man’s clothes are singed black, and his face is smeared with soot. He’s groaning in pain from the burns he’s suffered. When he sees me enter, he tries to say something, but his words come out slurred.

“Water,” I order, snapping my fingers. “Get the man some fucking water.”

Giovanni nods and strides out of the room. He returns a moment later with a water bottle. I take it from his hand and kneel at the side of the injured man.

I tilt the water bottle to his lips. He drinks at it greedily. “Easy,” I tell him. “A little bit at a time.”

He nods slowly, then lets his head fall back against the couch.

“Tell me what happened.”

“It was the—” He starts to cough before he can finish his sentence. It sounds like he’s hacking up a lung. We need to get him medical care, and we’re running out of time to get information out of him.

“He’s all fucked up, boss,” Giovanni mutters from behind me. “He doesn’t know his ass from his elbows right now.”

“Shut up,” I snap. I turn my attention to the man once more. “Who was it?”

He coughs, blinks, and takes another sip before clearing his throat and trying again. “It was the—the… the Russians,” he manages to choke out. Getting those few words out saps the last of his energy. His eyes close, and this time, I fear they will not open again.

I stand slowly. It feels like a fist squeezing at my insides.

The Russians? What kind of game is Igor playing? Has he lost his fucking mind?

“Get this man to the hospital,” I bark. I don’t wait around to see my orders executed. Instead, I stride out of the room.

My head is whirling with a thousand conflicting thoughts.

The Russians are attacking me.

Harper is distracting me.

And the date of my electronics shipment arrival is drawing ever closer, like a ticking time bomb I can’t defuse. We still lack the weapons to defend it properly. Which means everything I have—everything I’ve worked for—is balancing on a knife’s edge.

To one side lies domination.

To the other side lies ruin.

And I don’t like it one fucking bit. I’ll contact the Polish and get the damn weapons.

After briefing my men on how to handle the crisis and paying off the cops snooping around our territory in the wake of the Russians’ attack, I go home, but I’m still brimming with energy. I need a release.

So I change quickly into shorts and a plain T-shirt and go down to the gym. I want to lift weights until my muscles scream, then run until my lungs burn. It’s the only kind of distraction I can allow myself. It’s the only way to find any semblance of inner peace.

But when I reach the gym, my mood sours even further. I’m not going to find any peace. Not tonight, at least.

Because Harper’s busy with a workout.

I’ve stayed away from her since the night she came to my office and spread her legs on my desk. And what a fucking sight her pussy was. She was trying to tempt me into taking her. And Christ, I came so close to doing exactly that. To losing control.

So I’ve been denying myself even a glimpse of her perfect form in the hours and days since then. Right now, I need to focus on the business, and once all this shit has been taken care of, I’ll bury myself so deep inside Harper she’ll feel me for days afterward.

She hasn’t noticed me yet as I slip in quietly through the door. She’s working a punching bag in the corner. By the looks of the sweat drenching her thin shirt, she’s been here for a while already, yet the sharp smacks of her fists making contact with the bag still sound powerful. Her muscles move and clench. She’s sweaty, fucking sexy, and so tempting my cock is already yearning to be free and in her hands once more.

She must sense my presence because she whirls around to face me. Her jaw slackens, then quickly tightens again, as if she’s forcing herself to retain control of her emotions and her actions just like I am.

“Look who it is,” she drawls sarcastically, “the man of the house himself. How nice of you to grace me with your presence.”

“Glad to hear you’ve missed me, kitten,” I taunt her.

“Oh, believe me, I haven’t. Best two days of my life, honestly.”

The corner of my mouth lifts in a grin. “Keep lying to yourself.”

“Ha!” she scoffs. “I haven’t thought about you once, asshole.”

But her eyes tell me she’s lying. She’s thought about me, just as I’ve thought of her. She’s wondered what would’ve happened if I hadn’t walked away and left her on her back on that dining room table, legs spread, mouth open, pussy throbbing for me.

I walk over to her. She stiffens as I get close, but I brush past her and keep going to the water fountain. Control, I remind myself. She’s the prey, and I’m the predator. I force my attention onto the feeling of the cool water slaking my thirst. The fumes from the burning warehouse left a grating feeling in the back of my throat.

Looking in the mirror, I notice Harper’s moved to the dumbbell rack. Her hand is wrapped around a weight, and her knuckles are white from how tight she’s squeezing it.

She sees me looking. Her fists tighten even more, and in a heartbeat, one thing is confirmed. I’m so fucking deep under her skin it’s bothering the living shit out of her. I plan on doing more than that. I want to be her every thought.

I want to hear her beg.